


a prima vista

by citadelofswords



Series: will you come home (and stop this pain) tonight [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Dreamsharing, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, KH3 spoilers, hey look a bright spot!, kairi and riku are best friends too, let kairi have a personality!, post kh3, rated t for language and that's it, what ARE the princess of heart powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25590673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citadelofswords/pseuds/citadelofswords
Summary: at first sight.On nights when Kairi can’t sleep, she goes out to the play islands.It’s the only time she lets herself go. Riku still can’t bring himself to face it at night without Sora at his side, but Kairi has the opposite problem. In the daylight, she can hear echoes of Sora’s laughter off the trees and the stones, catches glimpses of their younger selves running around with supplies for their raft— a child’s dream of escape.They were never allowed here at night. At night she finds some peace.(this fic is a standalone, you don't need to read part one to get what's going on here.)
Relationships: Kairi & Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), extremely vague sorikai
Series: will you come home (and stop this pain) tonight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842991
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	a prima vista

**Author's Note:**

> i don't usually put author's notes in the summaries but i thought it was important to reference right off the top of the bat that you don't need to read part one to understand this. also the sorikai is extremely vague but since that's the endgame pairing of the series it seemed disingenuous to not mention it.
> 
> hard to give this the major character death tag because is it really? is sora really dead? who the fuck knows? certainly not me.
> 
> technically unbeta'd, see my profile for the concrit policy.

On nights when Kairi can’t sleep, she goes out to the play islands.

It’s the only time she lets herself go. Riku still can’t bring himself to face it at night without Sora at his side, but Kairi has the opposite problem. In the daylight, she can hear echoes of Sora’s laughter off the trees and the stones, catches glimpses of their younger selves running around with supplies for their raft— a child’s dream of escape.

They were never allowed here at night. At night she finds some peace. 

Kairi likes to climb up the paopu tree and look out over the ocean. The moon and the stars glitter off the rippling surface and she spends hours watching irregular, unpredictable patterns, wondering how different the stars over other worlds are, if there were any similarities.

She’s seen the stars over the Mysterious Tower, and the ones over Twilight Town. Though she knows now where she came from she hasn’t been able to bring herself to go back to Radiant Garden, not while Sora is still gone. She doesn’t want him to come back and have her not be here, or at least in training. And she knows everyone has so many questions for her, but she just… she just can’t give them any answers. Not now.

With a sigh, she leans back against the trunk of the paopu, staring over the horizon. Tide’s out, but the waves still flutter against the shore, and she can see the gentle wave of flags on the main island, and a whisper of movement out in the far distance— wait.

She’s been out here for hours and she’s pretty sure she didn’t see anyone leave the island. Is that— are they coming closer?

Frowning, she hops down from the trunk and steps onto the sand. When she makes to splash into the surf, though, her feet balance precariously on top of the water, and she jerks back. A dream? Or maybe some strange Princess of Light power she doesn’t understand? 

Whatever. If it takes her out to whatever she spied faster, she won’t argue with it. She draws her Keyblade, wary of charging into something she doesn’t understand, and dashes off.

The moon seems to grow larger and tower over her, and as she runs she sees what looks like a raft, floating in the middle of the ocean, and she draws up on old logs lashed together inexpertly, and a figure curled up on it, seemingly asleep.

“Hey,” Kairi says, because she can’t help but be helpful, even in her wariness. “Are you— SORA?”

Because the figure stirs and rolls over to stare at her, and she’d know those spikes and those eyes anywhere. He blinks at her, and then smiles.

“Kairi!” he says. “Hey! Wow, look at you!” Kairi looks down at herself and then back up. She’s just in her pajamas, a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt of Sora’s she borrowed and always intended to return, but Sora’s smiling at her like she’s the sun. “C’mere, I’m sure it’s gotta be exhausting to stay on water like that.”

There’s no way. Her mind must be conjuring up this Sora for her, she’s not sharing dreams with him the way Riku can. But he holds out a hand to her and when she grips it his fingers are warm, gloriously, and Kairi can hardly hold in her tears.

“Lie down with me,” Sora instructs, and Kairi can’t do anything except obey. “Can you believe how many stars you can see even though the moon is so bright?”

She swallows. “No,” she admits. “It’s beautiful.”

“That one’s Radiant Garden,” Sora says, pointing up. “And I think that one’s Disney Castle, but Donald sorta just gestured at the sky so I’m not sure. I think it’s just a feeling I’ve got. And then some of them are just our stars, y’know?” Kairi looks over at him, smiling up at the sky, and tries to rememorize his features. She’s been forgetting, she thinks, how beautiful he is with the lights of all the worlds dancing in his eyes.

“Why’re you looking at me like that, Kai?” Sora asks, startling her. He’s looking at her now, eyes wide and serious.

“No reason,” she says, and tries to press her hands to her eyes. It can’t be, it can’t be  _ real _ , it’s just a dream her mind is giving her so she can keep Sora close. She keeps trying to tell herself this, but then she notices there’s an absence at her side and freezes. “Hey, Sora?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s Riku?” For all they were idiot kids, in all her dreams of sailing away on this raft it was always the three of them. Riku was never missing. Especially now, there’s no reason why her subconscious would be giving her a dream of the raft without Riku there.

Sora goes still, and then his eyes go huge. “I-I don’t know,” he stutters. “He should be here though. Whenever I dream of this raft, he’s always with us.”

They stare at each other.

“So if your raft dreams always have Riku,” Kairi says slowly, “and my raft dreams always have Riku…”

Sora throws himself at her, nearly knocking her off the raft and into the water. “Kairi!” he cries, and Kairi knows she’s also crying and can’t help it. “Where are you? I thought I did it, I thought I saved you!”

“You did,” Kairi says, and growls a little, “at your own expense, and I’m really angry about that, by the way, but I don’t care right now. You’re in my dream!”

“You’re in mine!” Sora pulls back to stare at her, hands flitting all over her face and shoulders and hair. “But how? Riku’s my Dream Eater, so it kinda makes sense that I dreamed of him that one time, but I don’t understand!”

Riku never mentioned he dreamed of Sora, Kairi thinks, but she won’t say anything about that. “Do you doubt me?” she teases. “I’m a Princess. I can go wherever I want.” More seriously, she adds, “Maybe it’s the paopu connecting us to each other?”

Sora thinks about it and shrugs. “Sure, I guess that makes as much sense as anything else.”

“Sora,” Kairi says urgently, “you have to tell me where you are. Then we can come get you.” Firmly she grips the edges of the dream before it can unravel, staring at Sora as his face falls.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’ve never been to this world before. It kinda hasn’t existed for a while? So I don’t know where it is. And I’m not completely together. My heart is almost whole again, but I’m not… I’m not really alive right now.”

Kairi reaches out and grips his hands. “You’re whole enough to talk to me, and know me,” she says. “So you’re enough for me. I’ll come find you, okay?”

Sora’s laugh sounds hollow and awful to her ears. “I’ll be waiting,” he says. “The world I’m in, it’s called Shibuya. It kinda reminds me of San Fransokyo, so it might be worth going there and asking Hiro about it. Tell him I said hi.”

“Will do,” Kairi says, and then wraps her arms around Sora again. “I’m sorry,” she says. “If I’d just been stronger, this would never—,”

“Hey, no,” Sora says, right up against her ear. “You can’t talk like that. You  _ know _ I failed my Master exam because Xehanort infiltrated it and tried to take over my body and I was plenty strong. I saw you fight, you were really really good. I was super impressed. But sometimes things happen!” Sora pulls back and holds her face in his hands. “And I love you a lot, Kairi, so I’ll always be there to pull you out when you’re in trouble. Just like you’d do for me!”

Kairi smiles. “I love you too, Sora,” she says, and leans in to bonk her forehead against his. “And yeah. That’s what I’m gonna do now, and then neither of us are gonna do any more self-sacrificial bullshit so we can stop giving  _ Master _ Riku heart attacks, yeah?”

“Got it,” Sora laughs. “No more self-sacrificial bullshit unless Riku’s jumped in first.”

Kairi laughs too, and it’s wet with tears. “I love you,” she says again, urgently, because she needs Sora to understand. “I’ll find you. I promise.”

“See you soon,” Sora agrees, and Kairi falls out of the paopu tree.

It hurts, a lot, but she barely notices the pain. She saw Sora! It was really him, she’d know him anywhere, and she knows where he is now! Or at least she knows the name of the world. But it’s enough. Her hands are starting to shake with the effort of keeping all her feelings inside her and not just yelling aloud in delight.

Oh, she has to call Riku! But as she sits up, wincing as her scraped up knees bend, she realizes she doesn’t have her phone. Well, she’ll just have to row back, then. He’s actually home this week instead of in Yen Sid’s tower, taking a break and spending time with her, so all she’ll have to do is sneak in through his window and tell him what she saw.

It seems to take hours to row back, but soon enough she’s running across town. One shoelace is untied and she almost trips over it, but soon enough she’s scrambling up the tree outside Riku’s window and jimmying the lock open. When she slides inside, she finds herself with a Keyblade between her eyes and she squeaks, stepping back.

“Kairi!” Riku says. “S-sorry, you scared me.” His eyes widen as he takes her in, dismissing his keyblade to surge forward. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Oh, right, she’s all scraped up. Riku doesn’t wait for her answer, just rests his hand on her cheek and whispers a Cure spell. “I just fell out of the paopu tree,” she says, dismissive. “But that’s not important, Riku! I saw Sora!”

Riku stares at her, mouth half open. “What?” he whispers. “Where? Where is he?”

“I was dreaming!” Kairi is bouncing in her excitement. “We were on the raft in the middle of the ocean and you weren’t there so we realized we had to have been in each other’s dreams. He says his heart is mostly whole but he’s still, well… anyway he knows which world he’s in but he says it just reformed so he doesn’t know where it is, but we could check San Fransokyo and see if Hiro knows anything about it—,”

“Slow down, Kai, you could give Sora a run for his money right now,” Riku says, but he’s smiling with such hope in his eyes Kairi can feel herself tearing up again. “Did he look okay?”

Kairi nods. Riku places both his hands on her shoulders and she leans in close, wrapping her arms around his waist. “A little sad. A little lost. But he looked the same, I think he’ll be okay. We have to go get him!”

Riku nods with her, and pulls Kairi against his chest. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll go talk to the King tomorrow, see if he’ll let me borrow a gummiship. You can come with me— oh, no, actually, you should talk to Master Aqua, see if she’ll let you squeeze in some last minute magic lessons.” He pokes her cheek. “My cure magic isn’t great, so we’ll need someone to be halfway competent.”

It’s something to do. Something to work for. Kairi was honestly expecting he’d try to fight her on coming with him, but she’s warm knowing he doesn’t intend to leave her behind this time. “I can do that.” 

“What was the world Sora said he was in? Maybe the King or Jiminy know where it is.”

Kairi casts around in her head for it. “He said he’d never been there before but he seemed familiar with it… I think it was called Shibuya?” She’s unsure if she got the pronunciation right, but Riku jerks under her hands. “Do you know it?”

“Yeah,” Riku says. “I know of it, anyway. That’s… well, I didn’t know it had reformed, but we know some people there, me and Sora, so hopefully… hopefully he’s found them.”

Frowning, Kairi reaches up to hold Riku’s face in her hands. He’s so tall now, she has to stretch up to brush her nose against his, an old childish display of affection she hasn’t used in a long time. “We’re going to get him back,” she promises. “No matter what.”

Riku breathes in, and when he opens his eyes again there’s determination in them she hasn’t seen in a while, and it honestly makes her knees kinda weak. This is the man Yen Sid made a Keyblade master, and she can see why. “Yeah, we are,” he says, with a grin.

**Author's Note:**

> once again everything i know about kh3 comes from never actually having played it but whatever. i can dream. i can hope that kairi is relevant.
> 
> can't wait to show y'all what's happening in shibuya. it's some of my favorite bullshit that's been written.
> 
> next wednesday: roxas, the repercussions of living in someone else's heart, and finally some goddamn action around here.
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](https://citadelofswords.tumblr.com/) or twitter @citadelofswords


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